Stretching It: The Truth about Stretching

Stretching by Tobyotter

The perceived benefits of stretching are that they make your muscles more flexible and will protect you from injury. The truth is that they do neither. According to a recent New York Times article, old fashioned stretching just doesn’t deliver the goods. When the Times talks about stretching it’s talking about the kind of stretching you probably learned as a kid or at the urging of a coach or from a book on stretching. It’s the kind of stretching that you felt obligated to do but didn’t continue because you didn’t feel it did you much good. It was generally painful, unpleasant, and failed to make you more flexible. The good news is you were right to stop because it didn’t work.

This old fashioned stretching was over sold before it was understood.

New York Times reporter Gretchen Reynolds wrote an interesting piece on stretching Phys Ed: How Necessary Is Stretching? If you don’t have time to read it in its entirety, here are some of the highlights.

Women are more flexible than men.

Flexibility is not “a cornerstone of health and fitness.”

“It’s been drummed into people that they should stretch, stretch, stretch — that they have to be flexible,” says Dr. Duane Knudson, teacher of biomechanics at Texas State University in San Marcos, and an expert on flexibility and muscle reaction. “But there’s not much scientific support for that.”

The newest science indicates that excess flexibility is undesirable, unnecessary, and unachievable.

“To a large degree, flexibility is genetic,” says Dr. Malachy McHugh, director of research for the Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital and an authority on flexibility. Either you’re born supple or stiff. “Some small portion’ of each person’s flexibility ‘is adaptable,’ McHugh says, “but it takes a long time and a lot of work to get even that small adaptation. It’s a bit depressing, really.”

Stretching after a run or workout won’t lengthen your muscles making you more flexible, nor will it increase your range of motion.

There are two pieces to stretching a muscle, according to Dr. McHugh: first the muscle, second the mind. It’s not your muscle that becomes more flexible over time, it’s your mind and the message it sends to the muscle telling it to stretch a little further. The structure of the muscle will not change but your tolerance to pain will. Thus the illusion of a gain in flexibility with stretching, is just that an illusion. “You’ll start to develop a tolerance” for the pain of stretching, Dr. McHugh says. The fact that you can hold a stretch longer over time is a function of your mind accepting the stretch and not your muscles or tendons growing permanently longer. Sadly even this illusion of flexibility is fleeting says Dr. McHugh.

Changing the physical structure of a muscle takes months of hard painful work and sessions lasting hours. Still the changes you can expect are small.

And for most of us there is no reason to. “Flexibility is a functional thing,” Dr. Knudson says. “You only need enough range of motion in your joints to avoid injury. More is not necessarily better.”

Self-Massage for Runners Calf Muscles

Every runner’s calves need massage once in a while, here’s how to get it done fast and effectively.

Eight Steps to Grateful Calves
Step 1: Choose the calf that most needs a massage.
Step 2: Glide your hands over that calf to warm it up, from your ankle to your knee.
Step 3: Squeeze your calf muscles with both hands moving from your ankle towards your knee. Look for tender areas and work them a little extra. One hand should be on top of your shin bone (tibia) and the other under your calf.
Step 4: Squeeze and roll the calf muscles with both hands, begin at your ankle and move gradually towards your knee.
Step 5: Press both fists into your calf muscles moving gradually from ankle to knee.
Step 6: Press while rolling your fists vigorously into your calf muscles especially the ones on either side of your shin. Keep the muscles relaxed while you massage them and breathe out deeply.
Step 7: Repeat Step 3 by squeezing your warmed relaxed calf muscles moving from your ankle gradually towards your knee. When you’ve had enough, start
Step 8: Drumming the entire area you just massaged using your open hands.
Test: OK, get up, walk around, and feel the difference between your lower legs. Then get your butt back down and do your other leg.
Suggested Time: 2.5 minutes per calf (but take as long as you need)

Extra: All you need for a good lower leg massage is a hand and a leg. To go deeper try a massage tool, like the one pictured called the Knobble II, that will do your calves good. Press it directly



into your calf muscles beginning near your ankle and moving up gradually towards your knee. Keep the muscles relaxed and press into every spot on your calf. To go deeper, try rolling the tool as you press into the soleus and gastrocs that make up your calf muscles.

Conclusion: Try variations on this routine every time your calves need a treat. Self-massage it’s not just for cheapskates anymore.

Watch the YouTube video of this massage Lower Leg Massage: Do It While You View It

For more on calf muscles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soleus